In the autumn issue of City Journal, the skeptical doctor opines on the anti-immigrant rioting in Britain over the summer, the surprising reaction from the left-liberal elites, the ongoing social and cultural decay, and the completely irresponsible immigration policy of the British state.

One of the riots’ ironies (if they were merely an episode and not the shape of things to come) was that liberal intellectuals rediscovered the social value of punishment, which they had previously denied, both on pragmatic and philosophical grounds. Punishment did not work, they had long argued: it neither deterred nor reformed.